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'These Shining Lives' review or 'This is the sound of a critic's patience snapping!'

'These
Shining Lives', Melanie Marnich

Park
Theatre, 15th
May 2013

Written for the Ham & High

What
was once a crummy office building next to Finsbury Park station has
been transformed into a classy 200-seat theatre, replete with a 90
seat studio space and snazzy bar. There's even a company dog roaming
about the place. The only thing lacking a little pizazz, at Jez
Bond's brand new Park Theatre, is the programming.

Still,
what chutzpah it must've taken to get this project off the ground!
The venue has been thoughtfully designed. The thrust stage reminds
one of a studio space, but the stall and circle level seating add a
little grandeur. It feels like a particularly posh fringe theatre.

The
glamorous cast, which includes Charity Wakefield and Honeysuckle
Weeks, is the main draw here. Melanie Marnich's play, 'These Shining
Lives' – receiving its UK premier – is sound but rarely
surprising.

Set
in Chicago in the 'roaring' 20s, Loveday Ingram's composed production
rumbles rather than roars. Charity Wakefield plays young Catherine
Donohue, delighted to get her first job at Radium Dial Company,
Independent. Her task is to paint watches. She quickly makes friends
with her colleagues, including the initially gruff Charlotte (Weeks),
and everything runs like clockwork. That is, until the girls get sick
– so sick, they start to glow in the dark.

It
is a shocking story - but one can see the shocks coming a mile off,
thanks to Marnich's formal structuring. The most fluid scenes are
between the delicately determined Catherine (Wakefield) and her
besotted husband, Tom (Alec Newman). Marnich's romantic lyricism
('this girl looks like an answered prayer') works beautifully in
these gentle encounters.

But
matters feel more mechanical elsewhere and Wakefield is lumbered with
a cumbersome running narrative. The audience is held by the hand
every step of the way: characters are systematically introduced and
scenes explicitly linked together. Even moments of great tragedy are
spelt out to us: 'This is the sound of a mother's heartbreaking!'

Yet
this remains an involving and important story, performed with charm
and grace. One leaves the theatre feeling satisfied if not profoundly
stirred.